FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Andrew Luck knows exactly who and what stands in the way of his first Super Bowl: none other than the diabolical genius who made life hell for the young Peyton Manning.

Luck beat Manning last week, and Sunday he tries to beat him again, tries to beat Bill Belichick and Tom Brady quicker than Manning could, charges toward this defining moment with great respect but no fear of the remorseless hoodied phenom slayer.

Manning threw four interceptions in Foxborough the first time he faced Belichick in the playoffs, and Luck threw four interceptions the first time he faced Belichick in the playoffs on the road a year ago.

“I’m just disappointed in myself,” Luck said afterward. “I can’t commit that many turnovers and have a chance to win against a great team like this.”

The second time Manning confronted Belichick in the playoffs on the road wasn’t nearly as humbling, but he had entered the 2004 AFC Divisional playoffs having thrown eight TDs without an interception … and failed to throw a touchdown pass in a 20-3 loss.

“I’m not going to get into specifics on coverages and things of that nature,’’ Manning said afterward. “They just played a lot better than we did.’’

The third time was the charm in the 2006 playoffs for Manning against Belichick at the RCA Dome, but Luck isn’t interested in waiting that long. He is a young man in a hurry at the end of his third season, every bit as driven to reach his first Super Bowl as Belichick and Brady are to reach their sixth.

This is a better Patriots defense than the one that toyed with him a year ago, but this is also a better Luck. Belichick recognizes that you better play 60 minutes against Luck — a fierce resilient, relentless competitor who has fashioned 12 fourth-quarter comebacks and nine game-winning drives. On the road last month in Cleveland, Luck engineered an 11-play, 90-yard TD drive to beat the Browns in the last minute after losing a fumble in the end zone and throwing a pick-six.

“I think it’s his ability to really have amnesia as far as what happened the previous play and to move on and learn from your mistakes but not dwell on it,” Colts offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton told the Boston Globe before last year’s playoff game. “That’s the only way that you can bounce back and really have the focus and then have the nerve to continue to make those throws that he made.”

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Luck may come off as goofy off the field, but he is a stone-cold killer on it. Who can beat you with his arm, his legs and his brain.

“He approaches the game like a linebacker. … He’s always had a fighter’s spirit, that spirit of a guy that is going to pull everybody up and atone, as he would say, for the mistake that he made,” Hamilton told the Globe.

All that said, Luck is 0-3 against Belichick and Brady, with eight interceptions. Before the Colts’ 42-20 loss in November, Luck spelled out the daunting challenge that awaited him:

“They do a good job of making you play left-handed or forcing you to be one-dimensional. You’ve got to stay balanced. You’ve got to be able to, I think, attack the whole field.”

Luckily for Luck, he has other weapons in case T.Y. Hilton (three catches for 24 yards in the last meeting) is exiled on Revis Island. One of them is the checkdown to running back Daniel “Boom” Herron.

“I really think of it as Luck’s team, but growing up I definitely remember the things Peyton did in Indy,” Patriots defensive back Devin McCourty said.

Luck will be the face of the NFL once Manning and Brady leave the stage.

“I think everybody’s got to come to play. … It takes a whole team I think to win these types of games,” Luck said Friday.

The Colts will need lots of Luck to get to Super Bowl XLIX. They will need touchdowns in the red zone.

They will need poise in the Gillette Stadium noise. They will have to stand up to a running game that has gashed and humiliated them. They will need a turnover-free Luck to master Belichick and the possibility of rain in the fourth quarter.

They will have to believe. A quarterback like Luck, getting better with every snap, gives the Colts the belief that anything is possible.

“With him,” Colts linebacker D’Qwell Jackson said this week, “you can never count us out.”